The ‘Soccer Capital of America’ is now gunning for the Soccer Capital of the World (Cup)

When the FIFA delegation flew into Kansas City to evaluate its World Cup bid, local organizers left nothing to chance. They mapped the delegation’s routes to avoid traffic, stationed volunteers at the airport, and pulled roughly two dozen children from Kansas City’s Guadalupe Centers out of school to play a scrimmage outside the downtown Loews Kansas City Hotel at 11 a.m., where FIFA officials were staying. It was done to show them that the sport is really that serious in the heartland.

It’s so serious that Kansas City has earned the title of the Soccer Capital of America. It’s even a registered trademark owned by their soccer club, MLS’s Sporting Kansas City. Now, with the tournament underway and the world’s attention fixed on a Midwestern city that most international visitors had never considered visiting (or maybe heard of), the city is making a strong case why that title should change to the world.

The smallest of the 16 FIFA World Cup host cities, the city has a metro of roughly 2.2 million people straddling two states, and is more widely known for its Chiefs and its barbecue. But that’s not stopping how their inhabitants see the city’s role on the world’s stage.

“Kansas City, our market of the 16 that are hosting — we’re dominating the World Cup right now,” said Tim Cowden, president and CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council. “I love that.”

In fact, Kansas City wasn’t supposed to be here at all—Chicago was. The third-largest city in the United States had hosted five World Cup matches in 1994, and had the stadium, the infrastructure, and the name recognition. But when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel walked away from the bid—accusing FIFA of making excessive demands, including waiving taxes, absorbing all security costs, and signing contracts FIFA could amend at any time with no indemnity protections for the city—it let Kansas City make the bid.

“I’m very appreciative of Chicago for not pursuing it,” Cowden told Fortune. “When they didn’t, it opened up an opportunity for us.”

“I understand why Chicago didn’t pursue the World Cup. Chicago doesn’t need the World Cup to write another chapter of its greatness on a global scale. Kansas City—we seized it, and we’re leveraging it to the hilt.”

FIFA’s contract structure, which routes an estimated $8.9 billion to FIFA while leaving U.S. host cities facing a collective shortfall of upwards of $250 million, made the math hard to justify for cities already on the map. For Kansas City, the calculation was different from the start.

The bid process began in earnest around 2015 and 2016. Kathy Nelson—then leading the Kansas City Sports Commission, which spearheaded the effort—spent years making the case to people. “I wasn’t sure anyone would really believe me,” she told Fortune of her trips to the state capitol. It took a decade of phone calls, relationships, and pulled favors.

What she sees now: six matches at Arrowhead Stadium—monikered Kansas City Stadium per FIFA’s sponsorship rules—including a quarterfinal that features Lionel Messi, a game FIFA says could draw a billion viewers. Nelson estimates half a million visitors will come through Kansas City over the tournament’s roughly two months.

The city has hosted four national team base camps, among them defending champion Argentina and England, who chose Kansas City even though they didn’t play matches here (save for Argentina’s quarter final match against Switzerland). England went so far as to request a training site, Swope Soccer Village, that wasn’t even in FIFA’s official catalog when they visited.

A $700 million investment more than a decade in the making

The reason England picked Kansas City—over cities with more international name recognition, with bigger airports, with public transit to their........

© Fortune